CHAPTER 196: ACQUIRING SOLDIERS - PART ONE

"I doubt the church will just forget that it sent two of their agents to meet us, and they disappeared," Kai murmured.

As he spoke, the two freshly risen corpses, remade into sleek, whisper-thin reavers, dissolved into tendrils of darkness and slithered into his shadow space. Their faces no longer resembled their former lives, and their souls were bound to Kai’s will.

Vepice shifted beside him, her voice quiet but sure. "So, what do we do?"

Kai didn’t respond immediately. His eyes lingered on the violet curve of Ylthara’s barrier above them, glinting faintly in the late-day light. The dome was beautiful in its way, protective, ancient, but ultimately fragile.

"We have three choices," he said, turning to her. "We can run, hide, or fight."

"And...?"

"Running means we’d have to tear the city’s barrier apart. That would take hours, maybe days. By then, they’ll have caught us. Hiding? That would only delay the inevitable. Our names are marked now." He paused. "That leaves fighting."

Vepice looked at him, her voice barely above a whisper. "If we fight, would we win?"

Kai’s gaze narrowed. "Maybe. If I layer the city’s barrier with two of my own, they won’t be able to see in—no eyes of divinity, no prophetic glances from high priests or saints. And if I unleash everything, every last undead I have... we should stand a chance."

She bit her lip. "Everything?"

"All of them. Even Grond, the Grave Maw and the wyverns."

Her voice trembled. "How much of the city will-?"

"If we fight here?" Kai didn’t sugar-coat it. "All of it."

’And I need it, anyway. I need to rank up. I need the numbers.’

Kai kept that piece of information from her. That was only part of his reasoning, and he didn’t want her to look at him any differently.

Vepice looked away.

"People won’t just sit back while the church burns," Kai said softly. "The military, the inquisitors, and the citizens will fight back. And if even one of them survives and speaks of a boy necromancer commanding thousands of undead... we’ll be hunted. The gods will find us."

She turned to him again. Her eyes shimmered.

"They hurt you, right?"

"Yes," he said.

"And my old master. He’s here too?"

"Probably. This is where you came from, even if you never really saw it."

Vepice took a deep breath.

"Then we fight."

A long silence passed between them.

"But... Even the children?" she asked.

Kai didn’t answer right away.

"Regrettably," he said at last. "Yes."

Another pause.

"After this," she said, her voice trembling, "can we try to... I don’t know... start an orphanage? Somewhere far away from the gods and nobles. For the kids who don’t have anywhere to go?"

Kai turned to her fully.

"Yes," he said. "We could do that."

Her fists clenched at her sides.

"Then we’ll burn them to the ground. As painlessly as possible?"

"If possible..." he agreed.

She nodded, once. The deal was made.

It began with the barrier.

Kai stood in the central square of Ylthara’s western quarter, his cloak fluttering in the wind. His hands glowed with sigil-laced magic. Silent, focused, surgical.

He fed nearly 20,000 life essence into the air, binding it to the seams of the city’s dome like ghostly thread. Two additional barriers bloomed into existence.

Faint dark violet folds that spiraled just beneath the existing dome.

Silent.

Almost invisible.

Now, nothing gets in. And nothing gets out.

A heartbeat later, he opened the floodgates.

The shadows cracked, splitting like broken glass. From the rift spilled hundreds, then over a thousand undead. Skeleton warriors, zombie sprinters, death knights, elemental liches, skeletal mages, and a dozen airborne undead wyverns swooping over rooftops like cloaked banshees.

From the underbelly of his shadow space, Grond stomped into the street. The Grave Maw, too large to pass for anything mortal, surged forward like a crawling death engine, limbs scraping stone as its grotesque belly opened and devoured everything in its path.

The screams began instantly.

Inquisitors cast their divine light in panicked bursts, only for the darkness to swallow it.

One of Kai’s skeleton mages died first.

Its bones were scorched to dust by a priest’s holy fire. Then another, cleaved in half by a church blade wreathed in sanctified flame. But the dead were many.

And they did not stay down.

Kai raised them as they moved. For every undead he lost, he raised several more.

Within moments, the city became a battlefield.

Fire and frost rained from skeletal staffs. Shadow magic twisted through alleyways like smoke. Undead poured from every crevice, led by Kai’s elite, Ralts, Joe, Mari, Merri, Kael, Finn.

Grond lifted an entire wagon of panicked civilians and hurled it through a bakery’s second story. The Grave Maw chomped through a trio of priests before Kai pulled it back.

Its greedy consumption slowed his ability to create new soldiers.

’Too inefficient...’

"Return," he whispered, and the monstrosity vanished in a black pulse.

Wyverns circled, loosing shrieks that shattered windows. Reigning fire down on the houses to smoke out the rats within.

The Church retaliated.

His army collided with the church’s remaining forces in a storm of steel and soul magic.

Even now, as hundreds died, Kai could feel his life essence pulsing. More fuel. More soldiers.

From a rooftop, Kai observed it all, flanked by Vepice, her hands tight on the railing, her face pale but resolute.

"They’re using civilians as shields," she said.

"I know," he murmured.

"What now?"

Kai raised a hand.

Dozens of undead came to him. He whispered a command.

"Break their walls. Destroy everything in your path."

The army surged forward once more, unrelenting.

Below, a child screamed.

Kai’s jaw clenched.

I will make something better from this. This can’t be where it ends.

The undead marched. Shadows tore through cobbled streets. Screams rang from behind shuttered doors as Kai’s legions overwhelmed the scattered resistance.

But then, something changed.

The priests began to chant.

Their words weren’t in any common tongue. It took Kai a moment to figure out what they were saying.

[Aetherial Language Partially Learned: 55%]

Divine syllables, rigid and ancient, rang through the air like the tolling of a death bell.

"Great, are the angels who light up our sky. Great, are the angels who protect us from the dark. Great, are the angels who come to us in our moments of need."

A single sigil lit up in the sky, etched in searing gold. Then another. Then a third.

Kai watched from the rooftop, his heart thrumming, not in fear, but in focus.

"They’re not praying," he muttered. "They’re summoning."

The air itself shuddered.

From the burning heavens, beings of golden flame descended, neither human nor beast. Wings upon wings, covered in eyes that blinked independently, halos spinning like celestial gears above their heads.

Their light was suffocating. Real magic, drawn from the source of divinity itself. Fire that could pierce souls. Sight that could unravel illusion. Voices layered in impossible harmony.

They descended in silence.

Then, without warning, the city trembled.

Blades of heavenly fire lashed out across rooftops and through Kai’s ranks. Entire units of skeletons and zombies were erased in flashes of divine light. Not shattered, but unmade.

Even Kai’s elite soldiers faltered.

Joe lost an arm shielding a squad of mages. Rhea was flung into a wall, her ribcage splintered. Kael was impaled mid-air and exploded in a flash of radiant heat.

"Fuck." Kai said as he felt the impact of losing one of his elites.